Why Is Toganmain so historically significant?

Between 1911 and 1929 the Australian Pastoralists' Review published five volumes which recorded the pastoral properties and farm buildings of the Riverina and other areas. Some of the woolsheds still remain, but most have gone because they were a product of a proud and fervently optimistic age when labour was cheap, nature was bountiful, and Europe desperately wanted Australia's wool. The natural reaction to the bounty at home and abroad was to construct cathedrals dedicated to wool, as at Brookong, Urangeline, Tupra and Toganmain. But labour became expensive, nature turned sour, and the technology of the twentieth century produced synthetic fibres to compete with wool. There would be no more wool cathedrals.

Wool Tables

Toganmain Station, located between Darlington Point and Carrathool on the southern side of the Murrumbidgee River, was one of the principal grazing properties in the Riverina. With about 13 miles of river frontage the station was first established by NSW's Colonial Secretary Sir Alexander Macleay whose initials gave Toganmain its distinctive AML brand.

Toganmain's 167,000 acres were purchased by Thomas Robertson Senior in blocks commencing in 1867. It would remain in the Robertson family until 1988.

Ranged along the riverbank were the homestead, manager's residence, and the wool store wharf.

These and accompanying outbuildings resembled a little colony including barracks, stores, carpenter's and blacksmith's shops. Nearby were the men's quarters.

The shearer's quarters were located beside the woolshed. The wool store precinct was the ‘maintenance centre' for the station and its various outstations.

The Toganmain wool clip had an excellent and enviable reputation for both quality and style in Australian and English wool trade circles. Toganmain woolshed at 240 by 80 feet is the largest remaining woolshed in the Riverina region of NSW.

It originally boasted a 110 blade stand. So it was not unusual to have 60 shearers engaged, along with rouseabouts, cooks and shearing hands, as well as another 30 men employed on contract to work at wool scouring.

In September 1876 Toganmain recorded a total of 202,292 sheep shorn by 92 blade shearers, an Australian record never to be beaten.

Men's Hut

Outside the Woolshed, 1910

Blacksmith & Carpenter's Shop

Scouring Works

In 1887, Wolseley's shearing machine was demonstrated in the Toganmain woolshed. This established once and for all the reputation of the new machine, proving it to be a sound working tool destined to increase the speed and ease of shearing. In 1888, 15 Wolseley machines were installed at Toganmain, supplementing 65 manual blade stands.

By 1891 Toganmain was a massive property – over 300,000 acres in size. With Thomas Robertson as manager, a horse tramway connected the woolshed to the wool stores and wool scour beside the Murrumbidgee.

In that year, 218,000 sheep were shorn at Toganmain. Two years on, the homestead already had electric lights installed, and telephone communication with the Toganmain outstations in place. Expansion was only halted by the great drought of 1895-1903.

When Thomas Robertson died in 1904, his 22-year old youngest son John Seymour Robertson took over management. Despite the recent drought, the property still held 100,000 sheep. In 1910 John Seymour sold off 46,259 acres to pay for his father's probate.

The woolshed board was reduced to 55 ‘Wolseley' machine stands. Ultimately these would be replaced by 40 diesel driven stands.

As the once grand homestead began to crack badly, it was declared off-limits and iron bars installed to hold the place together. John Seymour and his wife ‘Babs' (Beatrix Constance) – a woman of considerable style – moved instead to a nearby weatherboard house. In 1940 John Seymour's son and daughter Graham and Rua took over management from their father, but Graham's time there was short-lived. In 1942, as a WW2 pilot, he was killed over the Pacific. John Seymour Robertson once again took over the management until his own death in 1958. By then Toganmain was much reduced in size and capacity.

Toganmain Stationhands 1891

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